Green Operations

St. Joseph County Restricts the Use of Take-Home Vehicles

May 7, 2008
• by Staff

SOUTH BEND, NJ – St. Joseph County commissioners will vote on a proposal that would reduce the number of County employees that take their cars home. Forty-five percent of the county’s fleet goes home with employees every day. The plan could save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, according to www.wsbt.com.

“Now with the cost of fuel where it is today and with the budget constraints of House Bill 1001, we needed to radically alter the way we were handling our take home car policy,” said Mark Dobson, president of the St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners, as quoted by www.wsbt.com.

Under the proposal, most of those county vehicles will be parked, unless an employee needs it for work.

The St. Joseph County police already have a more restrictive policy in place. Employees who are not on-call have to leave their cars parked when they leave work. Officers will still take their cars home, but they can’t use them for non-work functions.

County commissioners voted to eliminate their take home cars a few years ago to set an example. Now many other employees will have to follow suit.

Unlike passenger vehicles, which require biennial smog checks in California, heavy-duty diesel trucks are not currently required to undergo regular emissions testing. That might change with the introduction of a bill in the state Senate.

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